Archive for the 'Heritage Foundation' Category

The cost of immigration is calculated from the top down by taking the cost of all government, estimated at 4.6 trillion, and the percentage of immigrants, estimated as 13.7 percent, applying a ratio of 1.5 for immigrants to receive government benefits to get a total of approximately 950 billion dollars per year. A large percentage of the population pays no taxes, so that the deduction from this for taxes paid by the foreign born may be low. Allowing this to be 200 billion, we get 750 billion net as the burden on government. This is 18,292 dollars per immigrant. The gross cost before the tax payment is 23,117.5 dollars per immigrant.

Because children born in the US are not counted as foreign born, the above under-estimates the real cost of immigration. We could easily double the above figure if we include this cost. That gets us to 1.5 trillion per year as the annual cost from immigration since the Kennedy 1965 Immigration Act. As the size of the population increases from more immigration and births of this group, this cost goes up and will become an ever larger percentage of the spending of government.

The use of land, water, and the displacement of natives are not included in this cost.

The top down approach is one that allows anyone to modify the assumptions themselves. The top down approach is not some “study” that you can’t understand where the numbers come from. The top down approach avoids the my study v. your study type argument. If one plays with the parameters, one gets costs of roughly the same type of magnitude. The studies tend to come up with much lower numbers. They have to find every dollar spent, and that is almost impossible. So bottom up approaches are going to miss most of the cost.

The top down approach shows why every level of government is finding that immigration is a crisis, it is. It also explains why the public is calling in at ratios of 20 to 1 or higher against amnesty and against guest worker. Guest worker is really guest welfare.

==Cost of immigration results in fewer native births

This also shows why natives birth rates are below replacement. They have to pay this huge cost of legal and illegal immigrants. They can’t have their own kids, because the foreign born are using up government services and the native born can’t get married and stay married and have kids because the economic seed corn that should go to them is taken by the foreign born.

–Fertility has fallen since 1800 except during immigration restriction. This shows burden of immigrants on natives reduces native birth rate.

Fertility graph from 1800 to 1990. Fertility went down except during immigration restriction, when it went up from 1940 to 1957. By then, immigration had already resurged even in advance of the 1965 Immigration Act.

This fall in fertility is in line with the Immigration Vanishing Survival Theorem which states that immigration causes the genetic survival ratios of all the genes that come here, the flow, and all the genes here at any point in time, the stock, to asymptote to zero.

== Percent Foreign Born used was 13.7 percent

The foreign born was reported as 12 percent as of 2002 with a count of 33 million. If we add 2 million per year, then in 2007 we have 41 million. A total population of 300 million was used as a numerator. This gives a share of 13.67 percent for the foreign born.

Does the 33 million include illegals? If illegals are 20 million, it probably doesn’t include many.

It is assumed the foreign born consume services at a higher rate than the native born. This reflects poverty, higher birth rates, higher prison rates, and networks and an intention to use all they can out of America.

One-third of filers, representing 42.5 million of the 131 million federal tax returns filed in 2004, paid no federal income taxes,

In New Mexico, one-third of the nearly 900,000 tax filers in 2003 paid no state income taxes, state tax records show.

The foreign born are more likely to pay no or little taxes because of illegals and because they earn less.

==Reason wealthy pay tax burden is they keep wages down

by immigration. Its the wealthy who brought the foreign born here to be their servants and to displace us from good jobs and the job security that lets us talk back and bargain. The wealthy have tried to prevent us having a fair labor market and to deny us the right to bargain.

They have usurped the right of contract from us. Contracts are one-sided and unfair. By taking away our bargaining power, they took away our right to contract. The right to contract is meaningless without bargaining power. They took that from us.

==Calculation

GDP 13.21 trillion

Population 300 million

Foreign Born 41 million

Percentage 13.67 percent

Government Percentage GDP 35 percent

Government Absolute Cost 4.6235 trillion

Immigrant Multiplier to Use services 1.5

Adjusted Immigrant Ratio 13.67 % * 1.5 = 20.5 %

Immigrant Share Government .947818 Trillion or 947.818 billion

Gross cost per immigrant 23,117.5

Deduction of tax contribution of 200 billion

Net Burden 750 billion per year

Net Burden per immigrant: 18,292

Gross cost of government for any person 15,411.67

multiplying this by 1.5 gives the 23,117.5 cost of an immigrant. Immigrants receive a higher cost projection because of a projection of higher use of services and their imposing additional costs on the government, including incurring a foreign debt to buy the goods and services needed by the foreign born not made here, the transfer of defense and high tech know how, the greater national debt that has to be held because of them, and that much of that is not recycled here but becomes external, etc. See below for a discussion of this higher projection of cost per or due to each immigrant.

Gross cost of foreign born w/o the 1.5 multiplier 631.878 billion.

Net cost of foreign born w/o the 1.5, 431.878 billion.

=Illegals at 20 million Cost .46235 Trillion.

Using same math but deducting no taxes paid, we get 462 billion dollars per year as the cost of 20 million illegals. That is each year and includes no cost on individuals from use of land, water, etc.

w/o the 1.5 multiplier, we get 308.233 billion.

This has no subtraction for payments in by these illegals, because the bottom tends not to pay much federal or state taxes.

=

The cost of Senate amnesty or comprehensive immigration reform is being heavily underestimated. This is part of a pattern of such statements by Senator Ted Kennedy, Senator John McCain, President George W. Bush and others.

==From Numbers USA

(June 25) A roll call vote on whether to bring S. 1639, the “corrected and updated” version of S. 1348, to the floor is scheduled for tomorrow (Tuesday, June 26). On this matter, a senator’s “YES” vote on cloture is equivalent to a vote for amnesty.

What about defense costs? We have used a multiplier of 1.5 for those too. Does that make sense? Yes. Because immigrants have transferred defense and technology know-how to Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, etc.

The American atomic energy know-how was transferred to these countries by immigrants. Stealth technology was transferred. Missile and laser technology were transferred by immigrants. Night vision was transferred. Search Chinese night vision.

Our defense costs go up because immigrants transfer our know-how. The universities deny places in Ph.D. programs to Americans. That transfers our know-how out of the US. That imposes defense costs, in dollars and in lives.

In the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, it was atom bombs made from stolen technology that were being put in Cuba. The entire cost of that crisis has to be allocated to immigrants because of that theft of technology. Without that theft, Russia would not have been as far advanced as they were in 1962 and there would have been no Cuban missile crisis. We now know that almost resulted in a nuclear exchange, one that would have imposed devastating cost.

==Why apply the 1.5 factor to interest rate costs?

What about interest cost? If we had had no immigration since 1965, we would have no debt today. Immigrants have consumed government services and imposed a huge debt burden. This grows with compound interest.

–Immigrants cause over 20 percent of debt, so they are the cause of 20 percent of interest rate cost the approximate percentage we use.

In fact, immigrants may cause 100 percent of government debt as we discuss below. Their costs are what push government into debt at local, state and national levels. So the entire cost of debt and much of retirement programs and medical and welfare programs should be applied to them. They also displace many of those on welfare or assistance from jobs. Black male labor force participation rates were 80 percent in 1965, the same as whites but are 66 percent today, and whites are down to 74 percent as well. This alone is a cause of government debt at all levels.

Without knowledge transfer by immigrants, we would still have our industrial base. We would not have a foreign trade deficit, but a surplus. The foreign trade deficit started with a lag from immigration picking up in the 1950’s.

The gross cost of immigration above of 950 billion is over 7 percent of GDP. That is higher than the trade deficit. Without the need to purchase these extra goods for these extra people, who are supported by tax dollars, we would have no trade deficit and no foreign debt. Others now own us because of this debt. The 950 billion is only government cost for the foreign born, not private goods. Our trade deficit corresponds to the period of immigration revival.

We have had to buy foreign goods for the foreign born who imposed an additional burden on us. Without the foreign born, we produced enough for ourselves and for export. With the foreign born as a burden, we no longer produce enough for ourselves. That has created the trade deficit when before we always had enough for ourselves and to sell.

After 20 years of immigration, costs for immigrants meant we didn’t make enough for ourselves and the immigrants, we had to borrow to feed and clothe the immigrants and raise their standard of living to ours. Just as we can’t support the 3rd world, we are not able to raise up immigrants to our standards without buying goods from abroad.

The trade deficit has been negative since the mid 1970’s. Without any foreign immigration, including student immigration, we would have our know-how advantage. China tried to keep the secret of silk in China. We have given all our secrets to China and paid their students to come here and get them.

–Cost of denying education in math and science to Americans

We can’t even begin to count the cost of denying education to Americans in science and math. This then results in poor education of teachers in college and then pupils in K-12. One reason we are failing 50 percent of blacks and Hispanics in high school is that teachers are not taught properly in college. That happens because TA’s from China can’t teach Americans math in college. That has huge consequences on America. If Americans as a group had better math skills, our economy would be much farther ahead.

–American Exclusion Act in math and science Ph.D. programs

That comes from the American Exclusion Act at Berkeley, Harvard, MIT, etc. in Ph.D. programs in math and science.

–This exclusion is world wide.

This has damaged our communities as this knowledge doesn’t diffuse out to the communities that support these institutions and built them. This is another way they don’t give back to America. These types of acts end up costing far more than all the costs that do show up for immigration.

–Immigrants use water, land and air. They have expanded urban and suburban zones to almost eliminate the rural America we knew growing up.

Immigrants also use water, land, and air. This includes the destruction of pristine environments. This cost is not counted anywhere. The crowding on roads, commute times going up, etc. This cost is not counted anywhere. The rise in commute times is primarily from immigration. That is never counted.

— Huck Finn childhoods are gone in America. They are replaced by zero tolerance childhoods. This cost is not measured in any statistic. But many would put it at well over 1 trillion dollars a year in cost. Young people today can’t even imagine that Huck Finn childhoods were once the norm in most of America. That was America.

Feinstein, who helped negotiate the legislation and remains an ardent supporter, said she has received over 100,000 calls and letters on the issue.

“Have we gotten a lot of heat? Yes,” Feinstein said. But she said it is hard to tell in a state as large as California whether that sample of mostly hostile opinion reflects a majority.

That is a sample that is consistently against amnesty and guest worker in every state. When one gets that sort of sample in 50 states, it means it is public opinion. The public is feeling the huge costs estimated above, not some tiny figure that comes out of a bottom up “study” that doesn’t count most of the costs that the foreign born require and then ignore that most of the foreign born are not wealthy, and pay very little in taxes. Most of the foreign born are in the groups above who pay no taxes at the federal or state level. That just leaves payroll taxes. But many of the foreign born are illegal and pay very little in payroll taxes, but take from the public sector, and the private (e.g. ER’s).

Silicon Valley technology companies were fighting their own battles behind the scenes, spurning White House entreaties to help push the larger bill until they are assured passage of an amendment by Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., to increase H-1B visas and allow employers to continue to sponsor some permanent migrants for five years.

The industry was horrified when the bill emerged from closed-door talks not only without the big increase in H-1B temporary visas for skilled workers they have sought for three years, but also eliminating employer-sponsored green cards for permanent residence with a merit-based point system.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/tables.html
The US defense budget was 419 billion for 2006 requested. We are counting 20 percent of that for the foreign born, i.e. about 80 billion. However, it may be that about 200 billion should be counted for foreign born when we include the cost of know-how transfer by the foreign born, or the first or second generation born here.

Heritage research has shown that low skill immigrants (those without a high school degree) receive, on average, three dollars in government benefits and services for each dollar of taxes they pay. This imbalance imposes a net cost of $89 billion per year on U.S. taxpayers. Over a lifetime, the typical low skill immigrant household will cost taxpayers $1.2 million.[4]

This cost estimate takes all the taxes these workers pay and counts against them a subset of government costs, the ones the “study” finds that go to them specifically. Who pays for the national defense? Who pays for the roads? Who pays the interest on the national debt? Who pays to upkeep the environment? What about the air they breathe and water they drink? Doesn’t someone have to pay for this?

Who pays to guard the border? Who pays for DHS? The problem with narrow bottom up accounting is that most agencies of the government are ignored. Who pays for those agencies? National defense doesn’t grow on trees. Nor does interest get paid from heaven.

The bottom up approaches ignore almost all costs of government and only look at what is given directly to the recipients in a check with their name on it as if that was the only cost of government that they benefited from.

Against these direct checks, the study counts every dollar the person pays the government in whatever form. At most it should allocate the percentage of government corresponding to the programs that pay to the person. However, the person really enjoys all the other government programs at full cost, not just the cost the person contributes. So the Heritage Study is really looking at a subset of the deficit of these people, and is under counting that sub deficit by allocating all the payments the person makes to government to that sub-deficit calculation.

What about the rest of us? If we applied this accounting method to everyone, we would find that a lot of the cost of government was not allocated to anyone. Who gets the benefit of this other cost? God? Who pays for it?

For the low skilled, we have 2 deficits. One done by Heritage, but allocating all their payments to government, and another not done by Heritage for all the costs of the rest of government, which those who are low skilled enjoy as much as anyone else. So on these benefits, if we follow up Heritage, we find that the low skilled pay zero, since Heritage took all they pay already, and the low skilled enjoy all the benefits. This includes national defense, roads, interest on the debt, DHS, etc.

On the portion, Heritage looks at, the low skilled enjoy a payback of 3 to 1 on all the payments they pay to government. On the rest, they enjoy a payback of infinity, because they pay zero, Heritage took all they pay to government to put in the denominator of the portion of government costs in the form of checks to the recipient with the reicipient’s name on it.

We used a factor of 1.5 on the 13.67 percent for the foreign born to get the 20.5 percent of government the foreign born enjoy. As we see, Heritage has a ratio of 3 not just 1.5 on the portion of government costs it looked at, and using that accounting the ratio is infinity on the rest, because the low skilled pay zero on the rest in the Heritage setup that takes all the pay for the portion of government costs paid to the low skilled in the form of checks with the recipient’s name on it.

What about the high skilled foreign born? They have given our atomic, missile, laser, computer, software, etc. know how to Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Iran, etc. Out of the 400 billion defense budget, we can allocate at least 200 billion for this knowledge transfer.

For each soldier killed by night vision from China in enemy hands what is the price? This is ignored in the Heritage numbers. Foreign born high skilled have killed Americans by giving our night vision to China which supplies it to insurgents to use against American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.

If the Cuban missile crisis had ended up in American cities being nuked, what would be the cost of that? The expected loss from atomic weapons is not charged anywhere. That charge likely far exceeds the defense budget. All of that has to be allocated to foreign born high skilled immigrants.

==

Senators are saying they won’t listen to their constituents phone calls until they are voted out of office. Lindsey Graham has said it almost that bluntly as has Mitch McConnell and the California Senators.

We have to be willing to vote out Senators of “our” party. The fault was not in our stars but in ourselves that we voted Bush a second term and these senators, second, third, fourth, etc. terms. That is why they ignore us.

Until immigration is zero, vote them out. A good rule in politics is to vote against an incumbent unless they are voting to sharply limit immigration.

Senator Byron Dorgan said on Lou Dobbs that total immigration in 2005 was 3.8 million. This included all legal categories. That likely includes asylum and student visas, two categories often missed. Students often work for their home governments to get technical know how or even kompromat on professors, employers, or other students who are children of judges, prosecutors, etc.

==Per Immigrant Cost Comparison

Top Down Approach

Gross cost per immigrant 23,117.5

Net Burden per immigrant: 18,292

Gross cost of government for any person 15,411.67

The multiple of 1.5 takes this to 23,117.5. This is what increases the cost of a foreign born person to this level, the factor of 1.5. This allocates all the additional use of government costs by this group.

On average, each elderly low-skill immigrant imposes a net cost (benefits minus taxes) on the taxpayers of about $17,000 per year. The major elements of this cost are Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid benefits. (The figure includes federal state and local government costs.) If the government gave amnesty to 10 million adult illegal immigrants, most of them would eventually become eligible for Social Security and Medicare benefits or Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid benefits.

Heritage comes up with 17,000 per year for low wage elderly illegals given amnesty. This only considers the costs of checks with the names of the recipients on them. Even admin cost of the same programs is not considered?

The top down approach has allocated their share of all government costs to all foreign born. The Heritage figure doesn’t allocate must government costs at all to those receiving amnesty. This is a major reason it comes up with a lower figure.

== Projecting Costs of more foreign born or their progeny

The natives are 300 – 41 = 259 million. We have a ratio of

41/259 = .158301 for the cost share for each foreign born to each native. For a gross cost of 23,111.57 per foreign born, we get a cost for each native of 3,659.53 dollars.

If we increase the foreign born by 40 million, or they have that many children, we double the burden per native to 7,319.05 per native. This is a gross cost allocation without a subtraction for the tax contribution of the foreign born or their child born in the U.S.

Note, if we assume that there are 41 million additional already from children of the foreign born since the 1950’s surge in immigration started, we get the 7,319.05 figure as already applying to natives if we ignore the change in the ratio.

If we assume there are 82 million foreign born and their descendants from the post 1965 immigration, we get 218 million natives supporting them. We then have a ratio of 82/218 or .376147. Multiplying this by the gross cost of 23,117.5 we get a cost of 8,695.57 per native already to support each foreign born or post 1965 foreign born descendant.

This does not allow for a contribution and applies the 1.5 factor.

We had allowed 200 billion for the 41 million as a tax payment. That comes to 4,878.05 dollars. Lets say its 5,000 per year. That includes elderly and children and those in prison.

For 41 million foreign born, we get a payment of 41 million times 5,000 or 205 billion. That goes to 259 million people. So it comes to 791.06 dollars to each native. Subtracting that from the gross cost of 3,659.53 per native we get 2,868.02.

For the case of 82 million foreign born and descendants, we get 410 billion paid to 218 million natives, which comes to 1,880.73. This means a net cost of 6,814.84. That is what the native born less the post 1965 descendants (probably a smaller class) are paying to support post 1965 immigration.

So each pre recent immigration native born is paying 6,814.84 for post 1965 immigration.

If we double this figure, we get 13,629.68. This is the cost of increasing the post 1965 Immigration Act population. One estimate of US per capita income is 37,800 for 2003. Subtracting 13,600 from that we get 24,200. That is the reduction from both the continued build up of descendants from post 1965 immigration and new immigration. Much of that will occur even if immigration is set to zero, including no asylum, no students, no illegals, no guest workers, no family reunification, etc.

This is why US fertility for the pre 1965 based descendants has dropped since 1957. They are being crushed already and they foresee it getting worse without end.

Fertility has fallen except during immigration restriction from the 1920’s to 1950’s. And then it took 20 years to show up and it was choked off by the immigration numbers of the 1950’s. Note that it was not the pill. The peak was in 1957, the pill was released in 1960. Moreover, the drop in fertility from 1800 of 7 per women to 3 around 1920 was not due to the pill being introduced in 1960 or abortion in the 1970’s. It was the mill not the pill that reduced fertility. The mill meaning the Lowell Mill and its like, which reduced Lowell Mill Girls and other women’s fertility in the 19th century.

Immigration is a substitution effect from children of the native born or older cohorts to immigrants and their children. The Immigration Vanishing Survival Theorem states that this causes genetic extinction of all genes here at any point in time. It also says all genes that come here go extinct. This is now happening to the post 1800 genes as well as those here in 1800.

The above shows that people will come here until stopped physically or by employer sanctions or some combination. That must include ending all legal forms of immigration whatsoever, including amnesties, student visas, family reunification, asylum, refugee, guest worker, H-1B, lottery, etc. People will come until pre 1965 descendants have disappeared under this burden.

In fact, all genes go extinct according to the Immigration Vanishing Survival Theorem which states that immigration causes the genetic survival ratios of all the genes that come here, the flow, and all the genes here at any point in time, the stock, to asymptote to zero.

Men’s median wages in the US are flat since 1973 at 41,386 dollars in 2005 US dollars.

Thus the US is converging towards Mexico because the US is standing still. So the good news is the US is converging to Mexico instead of India.

Of course, Mexico may be above India because its next to the US. So we may be converging to India or to Central America which is lower than Mexico. Mexico surged ahead of Central America. This may be just exploiting the US better.

Note the Per Capita is likely PPP, since 500 million people into 2.5 trillion dollars is 5,000 per year. So that is presumably nominal per capita and the 2.6 trillion is nominal, i.e. in dollars at current exchange rates?

==

Of course, US descendants of those here before 1965 or even 1970 are likely not to exist at the point that convergence is reached. In fact, as mentioned, all genes go extinct according to the Immigration Vanishing Survival Theorem which states that immigration causes the genetic survival ratios of all the genes that come here, the flow, and all the genes here at any point in time, the stock, to asymptote to zero.

The US is engaging in a policy exercise to demonstrate the Immigration Vanishing Survival Theorem for those like Lindsey Graham and Barbara Boxer who think that math that Senators don’t take the time to hold hearings on doesn’t affect the Senators. What the Senate doesn’t know, can’t happen is what they believe.

This is the future of European Americans under current trends. It will actually take effort to change this. That means things like voting against any incumbent Senator who votes yes on cloture. That means ones who say they are against illegal but for legal, have to be voted out starting with the ones who voted yes on cloture and the rest told why.

We have to change minds quickly. This means learning the numbers and data sources and passing them on. To really care means to learn the numbers and the data sources and to cut and paste these links everywhere. These data sources have to be printed out and faxed and mailed or emailed to Senators, Congress people and state legislatures. This page and ones like it have to become sources of endless cutting and pasting until the MSM can’t pretend they don’t know the numbers and the data sources, and the same applies to Lindsey Graham. When Graham says that only bigots know the data sources on .gov then even he will realize he is a fool. Kennedy won’t, but Graham will.

The 1975 population was approximate 215 million in the US. The 2007 population is 302 million, so a growth of 87 million. Since fertility has been below replacement since 1975, the 87 million since 1975 are all foreign born or descendants of those who came since 1975.

==Previous 82 million for those post 1965 is undercount

The projection of 82 million from post 1965 immigration is an undercount.

Based on the 82 million we came to the following:

The gross cost of immigration post 1965 may be 8,695.57 per year per native.

Allowing for tax payments by immigrants, the figure may be that each native pays 6,814.84 per year for post 1965 immigration.

This included the factor of 1.5 for the cost of the post 1965 immigrants. If the actual number is 121 million, then we would could drop out the 1.5 multiplier and have the same numbers.

The 1965 population was about 180 million. The increase since then is 122 million. However, part of that was from the above replacement fertility of the pre-1965 group.

== Why are the calls to the Senate so against legalization?

If 82 to 110 million are post 1965 immigration arrivals, then why are the calls to the Senate 20 to 1 against legalization?

Because the post 1965 arrivals realize the above math. They want to be supported by the pre 1965 group, they don’t want everyone from the 3rd world to come and end the party. So they let the pre 1965 group call in to stop legalization and in fact to stop immigration.

Only the self appointed ethnic group “leaders” want more immigration. But their supposed supporters don’t. They are sitting on their hands letting the pre 1965 group call in to stop legalization. Some are even calling in themselves. They realize the party is about to be over.

The above math also shows why the emphasis is on illegal immigration, because its easier for the 100 million or so post 1965 immigrants or their descendants to identify with opposing that.